Many improvements have been made in an attempt, notwithstanding a player's skill level, to improve a golfer's performance. In particular, much attention has been directed towards the golf club used to hit a golf ball. For example, different shapes of the clubhead have been proposed to decrease aerodynamic drag, different materials have been proposed to increase ball flight distance and feel of the club, and various weighting schemes, including perimeter weighting, have been proposed to optimize the center of gravity and moment of inertia of the clubhead.
However, heretofore, none of the clubheads known to the inventor provide any aerodynamic control surfaces which, during swinging of the clubhead through an arcuate path toward the ball, produce local aerodynamic forces that act to urge the clubhead into an optimum orientation with respect to the direction in which the clubhead is moving. That is, there are no surfaces on any presently known clubhead which tend to urge the clubhead, during the forward swing stroke, into a predetermined desired alignment with a golf ball at the point of impact with the ball.
Furthermore, some golf clubheads have placed aerodynamic resistance, or drag, reducing surfaces on a particular surface, such as the crown or rear surface, of a clubhead. These modifications have arguably resulted in some reduction in aerodynamic drag and, accordingly, a potential increase in clubhead velocity.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the problems set forth above. It is desirable to have a clubhead with a vane that is exposed to the flow of air past the clubhead and is so arranged as to urge the clubhead into a desired orientation with respect to the direction of motion of the clubhead. It is also desirable to have a golf clubhead in which air resistance-reducing surfaces are provided on plural surfaces of portions of the clubhead.